むらさき食堂 murasaki shokudou: the north of the south
By and large, Fukuoka is the de-facto capital of Kyushu. Renowned for its food, picturesque canals, and vibrant nightlife, the largest city in southern Japan boasts a championship baseball team and even a ferry to Korea.
Kitakyushu is a fifteen-minute trip from Hakata to Kokura station aboard the shinkansen bullet train, one stop. The distance is so short that it can hardly be called a trip at all, but as far as cities go, Fukuoka’s neighbor to the northeast couldn’t be more different. An industrial port, Kitakyushu is all smokestacks and gloom, evocative of Manchester, UK or Detroit, Michigan in a working class sort of way. One of its claims to fame is that it was the intended target of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki during World War II. Cloudy weather spared Kokura on that day, but it would be another half-century before Kyushu’s second largest city shed its reputation as the pollution capital of southern Japan.
If New York has New Jersey and Los Angeles has “the OC,” then Fukuoka’s analogue would certainly be Kitakyushu. However, when comes to ramen, Kokura’s finest can more than stand toe to toe with the famed yatai of Hakata. Stylistically, Kitakyushu ramen is very similar to Hakata; both feature a tonkotsu soup and thin, firm noodles, although Kitakyushu-style shops allegedly get more creative with their toppings.
During my recent visit to Canal City’s Murasaki Shokudou, I opted for a spartan, no-frills bowl, and thus, could neither confirm nor deny the evidence backed up at another venerated Kitakyushu-style ramen shop, Kyushu Jangara. But whereas Jangara is merely a Tokyo-area chain styled in the Kitakyushu manner, Murasaki Shokudou actually hails from Kokura, and its product is full of the same good stuff that makes area ramen shops so delectable: a bold, frothy tonkotsu soup eerily redolent of plated shark fin soup in both viscosity and taste, a careful arrangement of choice, tender chashu and firm, thin noodles with attitude to spare, as if the ramen itself knows it’s the shit.
If the vaunted and highly similar Aka Noren doesn’t completely satisfy (its use of flattened noodles are a little jarring), Murasaki definitely fits the bill in a younger, cuter sister sort of way; the soup, is just a bit more saturated, the noodles a touch more orthodox. Bottom line: it’s another winner at Raumen Stadium 2, fast becoming the go-to destination for anyone in this part of Japan.
| glutinous and rich, murasaki serves up a bold tonkotsu with echos of "superior shark fin" flavor. quite a few shops do it this way, this one does it well. | 8.5 |
| firm yet pliable and pillow, this is the prototypical hakata, or should i say, kitakyushu-style, ramen noodle. | 9 |
| in retrospect, i should have loaded up on more toppings just to see what the fuss is all about. the bamboo shoots are uncommon, the kikurage less so. either way, the toppings were excellent. | 9 |
| i immediately went from murasaki to shinpuku, a ramen shop across the way. so no time for gyoza here! | NA |
| pleasanty lit, i was seated against a blank wall covered by a noren. overall, the place has a decent vibe like at most of the stadium shops, but the logistics of the counter setup could have been a bit more view-friendly. | 6.5 |
| kitakyushu ramen is stylistically similar to the best on offer in hakata. still, it's great that murasaki provides a point of reference without having to leave town. | 7 |
シネマビル ラーメンスタジアム hours: 10a - 11p (daily, last order 10:30p) tel: 092-283-2009 | 26.5 |
